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284 THE NAVAL MUTINIES OF 1797
A letter from Buckingham to his brother, George
Grenville, written near the beginning of the war, illustrates
the working of this disagreeable system, and shows
that the impressment of a large body of men was regarded
by the authorities not only as a necessity, but as a matter
for congratulation :
Most cordially do I give you joy of the arrival of the Jamaica
and Lisbon fleets. i I shall be impatient to learn what
numbers of men have been taken out of them ; but I know
it is estimated that these 250 sail ought to give 2000 men, and
God knows your fleet wants them. It is, however, certain that
there are many seamen in every port, if the press was as hot
as it might be.
As a result of impressing on the sea it
often happened
that men remained on board for several years together.
The crew of the Intrepid, for example, shortly after the
second Spithead mutiny, asked for two days' leave of
absence, for the reason that many of them had never
been on shore since the beginning of the war—that is,
for four years. 3 And the delegates at the Nore, in their
commentary on the second article of their demands, said
that men pressed after a voyage were often kept at sea
for two, three or four years together. 4
The strict confinement to the ships at times when the
fleet was in port was irksome even to volunteers and to
men who had been impressed on land. But at such
times it must have been still more irritating to men who
had been impressed on the sea, that no respite was
allowed them from their monotonous and unhealthy
manner of life. It is not surprising that the mutineers
at Spithead should include in their petitions a demand
that they should be allowed to go ashore, under suitable
1. I.e., convoys of merchant ships.
2. Buckingham Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 422.
3. Captain Robert Parker to Sir Peter Parker, 28 May, A.S.I. 1022,
A 503.
4. Address to the Nation, Papers of the Fepvlse, No. 22.